


The Bandit Queen

by Pastafarian



Category: A Practical Guide to Evil - erraticerrata
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 02:04:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21330463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastafarian/pseuds/Pastafarian
Summary: Catherine Foundling recounts her tale, as she prepares for the end of it; she was the Bandit Queen, and she rides to war now.
Relationships: Catherine Foundling & Akua Sahelian
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	The Bandit Queen

It all started when I killed a man.

Look, don’t interrupt me, this story is going to take long enough and I wasn’t in Seb’s caliber to begin with, not that anyone without a Bardic Name is on the Lorekeeper’s level. I’ll get to the answers you want soon enough.

Like I said, it all started when I killed a man. I wasn’t the Bandit then, much less anything more, hadn’t held a sword or shot a bow. Before I was ever girded in leather or steel, 

** _/._ **

_ Hands securing the tunic, doing up the fastenings. Catherine Foundling had been used to fighting in the clothes she’d killed guardsmen for, whose armor she couldn’t fit into; these fit perfectly, hardened leather with metal studs to catch a blade, deft fingers helping her into them which drifted just enough for memory. “Bend this way, my heart. And that, and rotate the shoulders; ah, it’s binding. Mustn’t have that, full range of motion is important if you’re to go brawling.”  _

** _./_ **

Aspect, was that?  **Chronicle** , alright, sorry for the fright, I’m sure someone can heal the cut. Where was I? Right. Long before I traded steel for cloth and blades for words, before I had met anyone I truly called friend and long before I met anyone that transcended those words, I was a pit fighter in Laure and a pretty good one at that. But aside from how an orphan of Callow like me made her money betting in the ring I wasn’t exactly the wild rebel. But he was pushing her down and her blouse was already torn open, and she was begging him to stop, and something snapped inside me. If the law was this rotten, if the guardsmen were as foul as that feckless pile of filth Mazus, then I would act. 

** _/._ **

_ Catherine Foundling stepped into the alley as silently as she could, catching sight of a ramshackle crate full of rotting cabbage as she did. Her fingers closed against the edge of it and she closed the remaining distance separating her from the guard in a handful of steps, swinging the crate into the back of his head. It broke with a satisfying crunch, putting him down as the girl he’d been pushing himself onto let out a fresh new shriek of terror.  _

** _./_ **

I pulled his knife out of his belt and cut his throat with it. Moving away instinctively from the blood spray was the only thing that saved me from the second man, but his second swing took me in the side and his third would have taken me in the head if I hadn’t rolled as I fell, instincts taking over from the arena.

I ran, okay? Not particularly fast, and fled is probably more accurate since mostly what I did was go in a mad scramble over a low wall and then up a crumbling stair that I was praying would hold my weight. This was Lakeside, and everything was crumbling but nothing too much fell, and luck was with me.

He left a thrown knife in my side, which I found out when I stopped for breath at the top of the stair and desperately tore my own blouse for strips of cloth to bind the wound with. Could say that I’d leave the knife in him when I next came back to Laure but he was long dead by then, dead that same night, sword through the heart, quiet, clean.

Never found head nor tail of the girl, but that’s not important.

I almost died four, maybe five times from that night. The guy I hit with the crate could have killed me, the sergeant could have swung more cleanly, staircase could have given out, bleeding out from the wounds. Fifth one would have been a surprise, then; I knew nothing of the bigger picture.

I met Sebastien in a little clearing in the woods outside Laure 

** _/._ **

_ The face was wary, but Catherine Foundling was dizzy with what she expected was blood loss and shock, and the bedroll looked like a nice soft place to die. She dimly heard a sardonic voice offer her the shelter of the fire, and she dimly heard herself reply in acceptance before the darkness rose over her.  _

** _./_ **

and I think it was the Daoine look that had her clean my wounds instead of turning me in. I wouldn’t have had a chance of taking out the patrol that went out looking for me without her. It almost doesn’t make sense that he would have set things up so neatly, but in a way it does; that was a test and it was a way of forcing Providence. If the patrols had never left the city, would I have ever met her?

I was the Bandit of Callow, the Deoraithe Wraith, the Orphan of Vengeance. They let the story leak, the whole thing, everything I was and everything I did, to build the story up. Left Mazus’s picked senior guardsman in charge of finding me, and ninety nine of his hundred died in traps and snares, to arrows fired from blinds and in one particularly moronic case poisoned food left at a campsite still warm from our fire.

My first Aspect was  **Survey** , back then. I took my second when I rammed a stick through his too-fucking-fit heart,  **Strike** , and no, obviously I don’t have those Aspects anymore, do you think I’d be sharing this with you if I did?

Sebastien swore to my service. I didn’t know why, I still don’t know why. Kegan was staying definitively neutral in the face of the rebellion that was brewing and that dumbass niece or whatever of hers had her own ideas, but William found me the day after I captured my third group of bandits and brought them into the fold and this absolutely ludicrous exotic dancer type from Refuge with the Name of Hunter who showed up with him stuck around to flirt with everyone and kill like he was born to it, so we were in business when most of the country lit itself on fire for no goddamned reason.

As an aside, can I just mention how annoying William was about that? Gods Above and Below, everything was “the boot of Praesi oppression” with him. And the bigotry! Seb isn't lying when she says I punched him out the first night when he drew on Kong. Fucker that the orc was, thief and brigand and probably murderer that he was, that night he had taken oath

** _/._ **

_ The Bandit stood, cradling her wrist absently, face lined with fury. There were twenty eyes on her and she knew everyone in the camp would know what had happened by morning. She knelt next to the Lone Swordsman, knee grinding his face into the dirt, and spoke with a quiet but carrying voice. “You killed one of my men tonight. Mine, for all that he wasn’t born here. Mine, for all that he had tusks. Mine, and you killed him for the color of his skin and the sins of his grandfathers, when they were as good as slaves. _

_ “Bury him. Do it with respect and grace, with your own two hands, you caped asshole who would be a hero, and next time you draw a blade on one of mine, you’d be wise to make damn sure I’m dead first.” She stood and turned, and left him in the dirt, hand grabbing and then releasing his sword convulsively. _

** _./_ **

and so he was mine. William didn't stay after that, which is good because Sebastien had words with me when she was fixing my broken hand, but he was there when we went in good and hard and left Mazus with his wrists and ankles broken, strung up from the rafters in his estate, and he didn’t even draw on Sneakthief, so, progress.

Things got exciting after that. Willy used us as a pivot to properly launch his stupid, incredibly stupid rebellion at the same time that Akua raised her banner in Liesse with her legions, not technically in rebellion but whatever, they were burning crops. In my Godsdamned land! Sebastien has a song about it with some clever dualism about people rising against or to the tower, makes everything I did sound noble, doesn't skimp much on how desperate it was.

We burned Dormer's supply train and worked with the Thief to steal Sahelian's. We needed it; we had grown, and had to move fast. The campaign happened as it did because we made it, it took the shape it took because my will and my determination found me able to  **Set ** the flow of things. I don't regret it, but I regret the deaths; thousands, mostly in Dormer's before she surrendered.

Akua surrendered first, chasing shadows and supplies, her flying city grounded in a null zone and her demons bound when she tried to use them, made her give a blood oath to never summon or permit the summoning of a demon in Creation again. Gave her some shit over lunch at the all-day party that turned into, holy shit can Legionnaires party, and had Seb, Lorekeeper by then, give her a reality check in the quiet of the afternoon. Didn't expect her to walk into my camp that night, walk into my tent with no fear, kneel and take oath like there'd never been anything between us 

** _/._ **

_ “This is a surprise.” Catherine’s voice was guarded, but to someone with a Praesi noble’s training, she was fully transparent in the conflicting emotions rushing through her. Her eyes widened to see her Soninke visitor in her robed finery rather than in the more functional armor, and then narrowed, hand to sword, at what rode across her back. “Here to try to get out of the oath?” _

_ “There is a way of this, in the Wasteland. An offer of wine declined, and tea accepted; a treatise written in choices of poison and antidote and the shape of the cups.” Akua Sahelian paused, and Catherine stayed silent, expectant. “I bring you gifts,” she finally continued, “numbering four.” _

_ “I see three banners.” _

_ “Madness.” She lay it down crosswise between them, closer to the door. “Corruption. Order.” She paused, poised, then stepped forwards across them. “It is proper for you to ask.” _

_ “What -” The Bandit cleared her throat. “What is the fourth gift you bring, then?” _

_ The Diabolist knelt, serenity written across her face. “I, Akua Sahelian of Praes, Diabolist in Name, heiress to the blood of the first murder, take oath under Catherine Foundling of Callow, Bandit in Name, heiress to the secret knowledge of Lord Amadeus of Praes, the Black Knight. I shall hold her as my liege commander until released; her goals are my own, and my life as is my knife is hers, that my iron may be sharpened by her steel.” _

** _ ./_ **

and stay.

Not that I regretted letting her. Not then, not now, not ever.

She might have regretted it the next day, when I handed the three banners to the Pilgrim and ordered her to tell him everything. Then again, I think she understood how close to dead she'd been, how completely fucked she was if I hadn't stopped her. The Grey Pilgrim! He was a walking legend, and he'd come for her. And not for no cause; when she rode to war it was with a legion of devils and an army of bound fae with a city in flight and a hundred thousand civilians as hostages. But she was mine when he arrived, or I was hers, or both, and riding the heady rush of the last night and that morning I defied him, and somehow it stuck.

It's not like my hands were free of blood. Bandit isn't a much kinder Name than Diabolist. We freed the fae, though, and negotiated a union of the Courts, and we came out of it stronger.

I still don’t know how she found out about the books. I hadn’t figured out what their significant was, but Viv had jacked, sorry, that pun wasn’t intentional, a caravan that turned out to be Legion despite all of our precautions against that, which happened every now and then and always turned out to have exactly what I needed and couldn’t acquire along with reams of advice, and can I just say having the Black Knight as my absentee dad was the weirdest thing I’ve seen outside of Arcadia? But this one had three little books, and it took the two of us to figure out the secret, and the act of understanding the implications was transformative.

We were busy, anyway. I was ruling most of Callow, inasmuch as anyone was, and with the Truebloods getting feisty and the obvious backing of the Carrion Lord we managed to hold together the Legion that had come west. One of Juniper’s Tribunes had a friend who worked with Viv to set up the Night of Knives and we killed the hundred worst Praesi noble scumbags in the Kingdom of Callow and left notes detailing their crimes pinned to their faces.

And the grain kept rolling eastwards even as, with perfect timing, Procer invaded and Tasia Sahelian rose in outright rebellion against the Tower.

William held the new pass Procer burned through the mountains with most of the Army of Callow and Talbot’s Order of the Reforged Bells, the Legions in Exile bled and died at the Red Flower Vales, and we took a trip through Arcadia, the Diabolist binding devils beyond counting as we went, the Bandit Queen choosing to  **Lead** her armies eastwards because demons took priority and I had a plan. 

** _/._ **

_ Catherine Foundling stood at the edges of the Field of Streges, watching calmly as the army deployed in front of her. No fewer than three flying fortresses filled with the absolute cream of Praesi villainous magery formed the mailed fist, and a field of devils beyond count or measure streamed forwards towards her positions. _

_ The Diabolist’s own field of devils flew to meet them just as the fortresses crashed in near unison to the earth, her father writing his devotion to his daughter across every shattered rune and stone. Liesse-the-city grew one thousand fae wings as it crashed into the great walking spire-demon that anchored the Praesi line and an army of Summer swarmed over its walls to take the bastions of mages in the back, and ten Arcadian gates opened for just a moment as a host of Winter made their own arrival. _

_ It was a slaughter, made only worse when the Warlock intervened; maddened by the death of his fellow Calamities in the Free Cities fighting a pointless war, he had thrown in with the Truebloods in return for commitments of rare magical tomes and reagents, all of the secret knowledge of the great Wasteland cities made open to him. But his fell sorceries swung at empty air as the linkage he sought with the Hells instead linked to Arcadia, and the bottoms fell out of his great workings as his son and heir to his teachings wove a great miracle which he called Dusk, dimming the very skies with its reach. _

** _./_ **

I learned a long time ago that the only thing better than a battle won was a battle refused and subverted. The Name was Bandit Queen, you understand? Not the Queen of Blades. But we had to stand and fight at the end, fight while Masego wept uncontrollably and refused to flinch, fight an army that had parity with us in devils, four times the regulars, and a hundred times the mages even after every contingency I had fired.

In the end, it was Diabolist who made the difference. Akua Sahelian who had so thoroughly betrayed her bloodline, Gods-damned gorgeous Akua Sahelian in tight leathers showing off her curves and flawless skin, brilliant Akua Sahelian whispering in my ear and always by my side and a half-step behind me, who stole fire and lightning from the spells of the mages we faced, stole the very breath from their lungs and the magic from their fingertips.

Never regretted it, remember? If she was going to betray me, it would have been there; and when I was crowned with the support of the House of Light and the Dread Empire alike, when the room knelt before me in soft silence, I bid her rise, and I told her in front of everyone there that I’d known the day after she’d joined me what she’d done, that I’d always known she’d used an Aspect to  **Bind** me to her and her to me.

I broke the Diabolist, canny, crafty Diabolist, Diabolist without a binding left to her name or a devil under her control, with two sentences; bound her to me again with the third, and raised her with the fourth as the Wizard of the West and my betrothed. She was my right hand and would be the co-ruler of my realm, and as much as I was hers she was mine, as much mine as any of the arms and armors and devices I’d crafted; and these things were mine to  **Shape.**

It was artifice, and it was truth, and it was false, and it was real. A fitting end to the Bandit's legacy, and a fitting beginning to the Bandit Queen's reign, I guess.

It wasn’t the kindest of beginnings. William had died, more or less cut in half by the Saint of Swords trying to hold the pass because the first step of the plan always works even when it’s Procerans doing the giant ritual working, and the Praesi brought down the mountains at the Red Flower Vales when they got massacred by the Witch of the Wilds, but at least it was a one-front war. Managed to tip off Pilgrim about the Hell Egg in time for it not to eat a quarter of Callow, that was fun.

In the end, about half the Priesthood of Callow marched with the army after voting the Crusade to be Graceless. They’d  _ liked _ William, brooding jackass that he could be, and they weren’t happy about the invasion. So we fucked them left, right, and sideways; burned with goblinfire, massacred with landslides. Mostly

** _/._ **

_ The first time Larat had opened a portal, it had been a simple matter. A great rent in the sky, dropping an Arcadian lake onto an army. Thousands, tens of thousands drowned or died of exhaustion in the bog that followed; enough remained, and the backlash when the Pilgrim swung his miracle at the portal would have killed him, had he been mortal. _

_ The second time, Catherine Foundling was determined to be clever. They were expecting it; army spread out more, less load, Priests ready, Pilgrim on guard. Saint of Swords, too, and she managed to cut through more than one. The Army of Callow made them as small as they could had to, hundreds of them, a ritual fed by every mage the army and the Wasteland had sent, protected by workings of the Light. _

_ It wasn’t enough. The Saint cut faster than the eye could see, the Grey Pilgrim’s star boiled the lakewater before it was halfway to the ground. The army surged forwards, the reserves committed, and the Marshal of Callow walked away from the front after giving a final order. _

_ Once they’d taken the bait, once they were ten steps from the ends of the killing fields and thought they had tasted victory, Catherine Foundling smiled a grim smile and nodded at where her wife, the Wizard of the West, was sitting knee-to-knee with the Hierophant, and spoke one word. “ _ ** _Escalate._ ** _ ” _

_ The portal was almost horizontal from shoulder height. It was wide and curved, an arc a hundred feet across but only an inch tall. The water came from Creation, from the bottom of the sea, thousands of meters below the surface, and the only two Heroes capable of shutting it down were too busy to intervene. _

_ She gazed steadily out into the distance, eyes not resting on the army dying in front of her. _

** _./_ **

they drowned. And then they sued for terms, and went on with dying to that mad Tyrant Kairos, but we weren’t involved and you’d have to get the story from someone else, which you of all people can do easily enough.

Alright, so that’s the background. We had three years of, more or less, peace. Not that it wasn’t full of excitement, with the abortive civil war that got short-circuited by mostly Talbot to be honest, and trying to be just hands off enough about the situation in the Wasteland. Still helped make sure Dumisai got settled teaching those three Apprentices of his, and as long as that doesn’t wind up having too much collateral damage I’ll let my father-in-law handle that mess. Picked up a couple of Drow, as you probably know; the Dwarves came through and they’re the only two left, as far as anyone knows, apparently a whole civilization put to the altar of Below, if you want that story talk to Sebastien. Or see if General Rumena will tell you; it lived through the fall, as an adult. Jindrich was just a kid, or so I gather.

That’s fair, I probably spent more time on the twins than on any of those things. Tikoloshe got practically adopted because as far as I can tell my wife is in love with Masego’s brain and things just sort of followed, so we’ve got a doting uncle for little Eleanor and Roho. Things were… good, until the latest news.

I don’t know how your Hierarch did it and I don’t particularly care, was never one for Choirs and the Heavens any more than I was for the Hellgods, but the death of the Choir of Judgment? How they let that happen, I can’t imagine. And what’s coming from it is… certainly interesting.

I’ve named Vivienne Hartwick as Princess of Callow with all attending titles and heiress to the throne of same. We’ll ride to war once more, as members of this Grand Alliance of theirs, if they’ll have us; if not, if this is just the false peace before the knife lands in our backs, let your second tell them that we’ll smile as the long price comes out of their hide even though we’ll fall next, rather than put our heads on the chopping block and let them swing the axe.

While you take ship across the seas so that these stories are written and these memories are not lost, I shall go to war; the Hierophant on my left hand and the Wizard of the West as my right, Hunter before me and the Lorekeeper behind, and thousands of years of war snarking at us as we go.

I will go with the armies of Daoine and the armies of Callow, with the Light Risen and with the serried Mages of the Wastelands, and when we meet the Dead King, we’ll light a goblinfire pyre unto the Light that even in the Baalite lands you’ll see it, Chronicler.

I am Catherine Foundling, Bandit Queen and Queen of Callow, and this I attest.


End file.
